"Michel"                                                                                    photo by Chris S..

En Train De Visiter La Morte 

And now I have just lost a member of my own family as well. Just last week on the 23rd of June, 2008, my uncle, David Vaughn died. He was an English Professor, beloved by all for his kind disposition, his sharp wit and his vigorous spirit. He was still cracking jokes from his hospital bed just hours before he passed. He survived for years with five different cancers, which finally pulled him down after a long and heroic struggle.  

He was an avid gardener, an enthusiastic birdwatcher, and he loved cross-word puzzles. Orange was his favorite color. As I was looking over his things, I found that he had more entries from friends in his high school yearbook of anyone I have ever seen.  

He died in the early morning during a thunderstorm.   I kissed him goodbye on the forehead, later in the day when the funeral home said it would be okay to come view the body, the first corpse I have ever kissed. He was very cold to the touch, as they refrigerate the body as soon as it goes to the funeral home.  I told him that I love him, hugged him. I stroked his cheeks and hair. I asked for a pair of scissors so I could cut a small lock of his hair to take with me.  I hoped that I would see him again. 

He did not believe in an afterlife or any continuation of the spirit at all. He just believed that we humans are all just clever monkeys and that when we die it is a final fall. He said that we might as well throw his ashes in the trash for all he cared. But even so, with a small group of his friends, we sprinkled his ashes in the garden he loved so well, the same place that he had scattered the ashes of his life-mate less than a year before, the same place where he had scattered the ashes of his mother, my grandmother over ten years before. 

The ashes of a body are surprisingly heavy, they don't tell you that. I stuck my hands into the black plastic box that housed his gray course ashes and drew out large handfuls, distributing it around into the flower beds. Soon my hands, pants and shirt were dusted with the ashes. I had to withdraw inside the house where I could find a private place to weep and scream. There I drew a bath and washed off the ashes. I lost track of time entirely and have no idea how long I was there. I felt so nauseated.  And days later I still do. Death, even when expected, seems like such a brutal surprise.